Bye week questions-answers, volume four

Chris Young and Darius Waters, Nebraska’s pass defense, and more in this edition. …Q: How are Chris Young and Darius Waters doing at Arizona Western College?A: Waters is redshirting this season, apparently to preserve a year of eligibility at the four-year level — he has said he’d like to eventually end up back at Washington. Young is playing this season, and in the second game of the season returned an interception for a touchdown. Young has also said he would like to eventually end up at Washington.Q: How is Ronnie Fouch doing at Indiana State?A: ISU has actually played just two games so far heading into a contest tomorrow against Western Illinois (ISU has defeated St. Joseph’s of Indiana and lost to Cincinnati.) He is 33-59 for 304 yards and a touchdown in two games as the team’s starting QB.Q: How is the Nebraska statistically against the pass? I remember Arizona QB Nick Foles had the worst game of his career against Nebraska in the bowl game last year. Maybe they are just THAT good on defense.A: They just may be. Some of us tried to point out before the game just how good Nebraska’s pass defense might be. As noted in that story, Nebraska was No. 1 in the nation last year in defensive pass efficiency a better stat than pass defense (which measures just yards allowed), though Nebraska was good in that, too, at 18th. And Nebraska returned two cornerbacks from that team who each could be really high draft picks. That’s why UW tried to devise a gameplan that emphasized the run over the pass (for all the discussion about it, UW had 39 rushes to 20 passes in the game). And you are also correct that Arizona QB Nic Foles had one of the worst statistical games in recent memory against Nebraska last year in the Holiday Bowl, going 6-20 for 28 yards and an interception before being pulled. In fact, I’d forgotten until reviewing that game for this question that Arizona had just 51 yards of total offense until getting 72 on a garbage-time drive that began with 6:50 left in the game. At the time, many viewed that game as a colossal collapse by Arizona. But maybe it maybe it really said a lot more about Nebraska.Q: Would you describe what the affect is on a school when an athlete returns to get their degree after their elgibility runs out?A: Depends on when they do it. Most of the metrics used to judge graduation rates and all that use six years as the cutoff point. So of an athlete leaves, then comes back and gets a degree within six years of initially enrolling, it can help in that regard. Otherwise, it doesn’t necessarily help the school in any tangible way other than obviously helping it fulfill one of its main stated missions.Q: If Washington can regroup and put together a .500 season or a game or 2 better, while UCLA finishes below .500 and their offense continues to struggle, do you foresee a possible switch in commitment for Brett Hundley?A: No. From what I could glean from what Hundley said after he committed, the won-loss records of the two teams this year (or what they might be) had no real impact on his decision. I guess I also think that if he were waiting for something like that to change his decision he wouldn’t have committed early. Guys for whom the won-loss records of teams during that season will be a key factor in where they decide to commit usually wait a while. Also, I guess I don’t really see a huge difference in being a game or two above .500 and a game or two below it. And it could be argued that UCLA’s struggling offense would only be more inducement for Hundley to go there, making it all the more likely he’d have a chance to play immediately.
All for now.